Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201260042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TUCSON, ARIZ. LENGTH: Medium
CRITICS CALL BIOSPHERE `BIOS-FAKE'
The four men and four women were to be sealed inside the glass-and-steel structure; raising their own food; recycling their air, water and wastes - independent and untouched by the world outside.That, at least, is what they said.
But in the four months that Biosphere 2 has operated, project sponsors have pumped in fresh air from outside. They have admitted to secretly installing a machine to scrub carbon dioxide from the air. They have acknowledged that the artificial world was stocked with food ahead of time.
Some former employees or people close to the project are charging fraud and deception. Other sources say it's just a matter of inept public relations. In either case, the credibility of a project that once promised to blaze a trail for the survival of Earth's species has eroded.
Among the most serious accusations:
A crew member who left for medical treatment secretly brought back a duffel bag full of supplies - including, one critic says, a supply of seals that are supposed to prove the airlock doors haven't been opened.
Computer programs that monitor conditions inside the dome were designed to permit tampering with the data.
Space Biospheres Ventures, the private company that developed the project, denies those specific allegations as well as others by critics of Biosphere management, said spokesman Larry Winokur.
But a key consultant, Carl Hodges, director of the University of Arizona's Environmental Research Laboratory, has gone to Texas billionaire Ed Bass - the prime funding source for Biosphere 2 - and urged him to "do everything possible" to save the project's credibility.
Hodges, who apparently has been severed from the project at least for now, told the Arizona Daily Star that he expressed his "deep concern over the status of the project."
Just what is going on inside Biosphere 2 is difficult to verify - partly, it seems, because the project's managers are not reluctant to litigate.
One critic is being sued by Biosphere officials. Some former employees say they fear retaliation if they speak out; some worry their home phones are bugged. Outside specialists working at the site have been required to sign statements promising not to talk to reporters or sue the company - or acknowledge that such statements exist.
One scientist unaffiliated with the project who is willing to speak for the record is Larry Slobodkian of the State University of New York-Stonybrook, a general ecologist who once worked with NASA on closed systems in space.
He says Biosphere 2's introduction of fresh air, storage of food and outside energy production "disqualifies the installation as a closed experiment."
Slobodkian notes that the project depends on electricity from outside the dome, uses air-conditioning and lacks experimental controls.
The 3.15-acre "miniplanet" featuring a tiny ocean, savannah and 3,800 species of plants and animals, was sealed Sept. 26 for a two-year experiment.
Biosphere officials said beforehand that this was not pure science but a science-oriented business.